BONUS – Coaching Session #1 with Elizabeth Wood (video, show notes, transcript)
Show Notes
In this special bonus episode, Miss Catherine M.H. and V.E. Griffith coach Elizabeth Wood through the start of her very first Nanowrimo novel.
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The Revision Wizards are at https://www.revisionwizards.com
V.E. Griffith’s website: https://www.vegriffith.com
Miss Catherine M.H.’s website: https://www.scribes-pen.com
Transcript at: https://revisionwizards.com/?p=2137
Transcript
V.E. Griffith 0:00
Hey, wizards. V.E. Griffith here with a quick introduction to this special episode. In this show, we’re going to give you a peek inside a coaching session with guest Elizabeth Wood, who this year is attempting her very first NaNoWriMo with her very first long form work. Over the course of nano, we’re going to check in with her and coach her through the challenge using the Three Story Method and see how she feels about her story as it comes together. You’ll get a ringside seat as these bonus episodes come out. We want to do them weekly, and you’ll get them on the podcast and YouTube feed in addition to our regularly scheduled episodes. For a few of you, this one is a repost. That’s because in the first edition, I totally messed up the audio starting at about a 13 minute mark. I threw away the old work and completely redid the episode from the original recordings and things should be fixed now. I apologize for my error, I promise it will not happen again. It’s too much work to do it twice every time. As always, you can find show notes, links, transcripts and rubrics at revisionwizards.com. You can support us on Patreon for as little as $1 per regular episode at patreon.com/revisionwizards. And we always love to hear from you with questions, comments and feedback. And with that, here we go.
Miss Catherine M.H. 1:19
Welcome to the Revision Wizards Podcast. I’m as Katherine and H and with me over there is V.E. Griffith. And today we have a … Am I calling you, Elizabeth? Did you want to be called What would you like to be called? Who are you? Welcome!
Elizabeth Wood 1:33
Hi, hello.
V.E. Griffith 1:38
Tell us your name and your pronouns.
Elizabeth Wood 1:42
I’m Liz, she/her.
Miss Catherine M.H. 1:45
Okay, so we are doing a coaching session with you today. So I am super excited. So with my clients, I either know what I’m getting involved in before I have a coaching session, or they just come to me and I’m like, Cool, throw it all at me and I will help you out. So which kind of version are you today? Do you have some idea of where you would like things to go? Or do you want me to just start spitballing questions at you?
Elizabeth Wood 2:14
Well, the big thing that I’m looking for is possibly some help with world building, I heard that you’re kind of like the queen of world building. So I wanted to pick your brain a little bit and see what you had going on. I’m real good at taking kind of templates, worlds that are already created and then running with that, creating my own stories on them. Right now I’m writing for the November challenge. And I’ve got a story that I’ve cooked up years ago that I’m actually trying to flesh out and write but I want to stray away from what it was based on and actually create my own world around it. So I’m hoping that you can kind of help me there. Possibly.
Miss Catherine M.H. 2:59
Sure. Um, do we have a genre idea? So when I say that I don’t mean you have to like really nitty gritty. Are we talking fantasy as in like, we’ve got magic. I’ve got like dragons. I’ve got fairies, sci fi, what were you envisioning your world like?
Elizabeth Wood 3:21
So the world that I’m working on, it’s a fantasy world, mostly geared toward like necromancy, undead we got kind of a positive light thing drifting off into darkness and then we’re trying to bring back the life into the world.
Miss Catherine M.H. 3:44
That’s awesome. Okay. Loving it. Just writing notes. Sorry. Okay,
V.E. Griffith 3:54
Tell us briefly about your protagonist.
Elizabeth Wood 3:58
So my protagonist the she’s sort of a sort of a … I’m broken right now hold on. So my protagonist is She’s a light priestess. Kind of raised to… I really don’t know how to explain this. I’m sorry.
Miss Catherine M.H. 4:27
No, you’re fine. So she’s a light priestess. What about age? What are we looking at age wise?
Elizabeth Wood 4:35
She’s closer to about 23.
Miss Catherine M.H. 4:38
Okay, um, if you were to describe her as if you’re describing her to someone who is blind. So how would you? Is she tall? Is she thin? Is she like skeleton? Is she would you consider her pretty? What what description would you you give to her to describe it to somebody.
Elizabeth Wood 5:04
So with her, I’d describe her as being blonde. She’s about probably 5’1″, 5’2″. Kind of small bit meek. But she’s really into learning. She absolutely loves hitting the books, doing magic. She is really curious about the world and what it can possibly do. She’s got a sense that she’s being sheltered. And she wants to break out of that.
V.E. Griffith 5:38
Okay, and what’s your antagonist or force of antagonism here?
Elizabeth Wood 5:42
I’ve actually got a couple. And I think that I’m struggling right there. Death really is a big one. There is somebody who is very close to dying, they have a disease that’s causing them to ultimately meet their end. And she’s trying to keep that from happening. And she ends up approaching somebody who his, his entire career has been spent managing death and how to avoid it and how to bring it and control it.
Miss Catherine M.H. 6:24
Okay, so is death, an actual character? A physical character? Or is it just, like an element almost?
Elizabeth Wood 6:34
It’s an element and sort of an idea, I think.
Miss Catherine M.H. 6:39
Okay. All right. So if you were to step into this world, so your main character walks outside of their house, what would we be seeing?
Elizabeth Wood 6:54
Mostly, you know, kind of every day like the Earth, but slightly more, slightly brighter, you can kind of feel the aura of magic around you, it breathes in and out of the trees and the ground and everything in the air.
Miss Catherine M.H. 7:16
Okay, and now, this is how it always is, or is this being dimmed because of the death that is happening around?
Elizabeth Wood 7:27
This is how it always is, for the most part. Death really. Story short, though, there was an invasion that has long since been so far, it’s been over. It’s about 20 years since that happened. And there were some casualties that continue to survive after the war was over. They’re basically called the immortals. So they’re dead. But they’re, they’re basically undead. Walking around living lives as normal. And right now, what’s happening is they are starting to disappear one by one. They’re either getting sick, or they are struggling to see what the point is. So I forgot actually where I was going with that, and I’m sorry.
Miss Catherine M.H. 8:30
No, that’s cool. I’m getting actually quite a bit so. Okay.
V.E. Griffith 8:36
What level of technology are we dealing with? Are we do in Lord of the Rings, kind of horses and, you know, pull carts? Are we doing something more modern than that? Are we
Elizabeth Wood 8:48
Somewhere in between. I would say if, it’s not a steampunk world, but it would be kind of on that level. Where are you have the vintage meeting with the modern.
V.E. Griffith 9:01
Okay, that sounds like it’s right up Catherine’s alley.
Miss Catherine M.H. 9:05
Trying to like think of which ones that would be. I’m wondering if it’s more like Regency? Or if you would try to think okay, so scratch that part. What do, what kind of culture are we looking at? If you were to base it off of one of the ones that we have here in, you know, our world? What culture would you say it is similar to?
Elizabeth Wood 9:29
That’s an excellent question. It’s kind of its own.
Miss Catherine M.H. 9:35
So to expand more on that, like, what kind of clothing would people be wearing? What are the colors that would represent these people? So like example…
Elizabeth Wood 9:48
I thought that sorry, what would you I hadn’t really thought too much about it.
Miss Catherine M.H. 9:54
So now we can brainstorm some of that. What would you like your character to be wearing? What do you picture her dressed in? When you picture her?
Elizabeth Wood 10:06
I you know, I imagined them being dressed. Actually pretty thickly. I hadn’t really imagined that it would be cold, but they’d be kind of you know, bundled up. Possibly. Not necessarily a robes I guess, sort of like a Greco Roman style mixed with like medieval
Miss Catherine M.H. 10:32
You know, it’s like even strangers that I’ve seen stuff like that before. There is a group that I go to this Viking establishment and part of them dress in a mixture of Viking clothes on top of like their robe and garb it’s super strange but it works really well.
Okay, so what colors would you imagine seeing your everyday person and so these aren’t like the priests or anything like this? This is what if you woke up in this world and you walked outside, What are you wearing? What colors are normal to be seen?
Elizabeth Wood 11:18
Kind of brown, red, purpley colors. Things that are more earthly, muted, not whole lot of bright colors really unless you get into like the mages where they’re probably wearing a lot more color.
V.E. Griffith 11:36
Do the colors that people were having the cultural significance?
Elizabeth Wood 11:41
Not really no.
V.E. Griffith 11:43
Okay.
Miss Catherine M.H. 11:44
So let’s look at your social world. So do you have a system setup for if you are female This is what happens if you are male This is what happens
Elizabeth Wood 12:03
No it’s it’s mostly equality. I mean there are some there are some gender roles involved in that again, because some of the technology is limited but there it’s, equality is a big thing in in this this time period, you know anybody can do anything they want regardless of what gender they are, how old they are. Age is something that’s especially with the mages and them magic that is available age is not a concern. They’ve been able to extend their lifespan quite a bit so they can do pretty much whatever they want at any age.
Miss Catherine M.H. 13:00
Okay, so then that brings me to our you their social and like economic statuses. So do you have poor people? Okay, so describe a little bit of that to me.
Elizabeth Wood 13:18
Um, well, you know, you definitely have you know, your beggars you have your you have you know, there’s pirates, there’s warrior classes that kind of walk around and make themselves known, kind of get involved in the day to day every once in a while. Make a fuss. You have all kinds of all kinds of stuff. I guess it’s really hard to explain.
Miss Catherine M.H. 13:55
Do you have a governance system?
Elizabeth Wood 13:58
I had I don’t have it really fleshed out. I don’t really have it fleshed out there. There is sort of a mag government that they handle quite a bit of, magic and law are kind of bound together because magic is just in the air constantly. They live it breathe it, everybody does magic. So they have to govern with it. If that makes any sense.
Miss Catherine M.H. 14:36
Nice. That brings me to the next important question. Magic, start describing your magic. It doesn’t matter if you word vomit at me. I will keep up with you. Just start describing any of the points, anything that pops into your head at all, go for it.
Elizabeth Wood 14:54
So magic is very strongly based in the elements, not only of the planet that there On but also of the universe itself. So you have, you have light you have, you have shadow magic, you have the, well not the void, but you have a void entirely where there is no magic. You have nature magic, which encompasses, you know, earth, wind, fire, air, water. And it’s kind of like really on this, on the side, its own thing. You also have blood magic, which is considered to be in opposition to nature magic. I haven’t really dove too deeply into those details, but it is kind of a big part of my story. So I really do need to. You have all of these different forces working together. And part of the part of the thing that comes to a head in the story is that they have researched all of the positive sides of magic. And kind of gotten to the point where they have maxed out on what they can do with it. So they actually need to start using alternative forms of magic or darker magic to kind of beef up their their positive sides. And there is a lot of theorists trying to figure out how to do that.
V.E. Griffith 16:40
That brings me to two questions to think about. First of all, if you have a if you have a light side and the dark side, your magic, what’s the penalty for using the dark side? What’s the downside there?
Elizabeth Wood 16:54
So there there’s, there’s a few there’s, there’s not a whole lot. As far as the government’s concerned, there really isn’t a whole lot of penalties if it’s really severe and causes a problem as a whole. They can put you on trial. And depending on how many, you know, if there were lives lost, or, you know, if you destroyed half of the planet, while they they might decide that you shouldn’t be there anymore. But most of it is, I guess it’s called a sort of a karmatic system. Does that make any sense? You know, if you if you continue to use this negative magic, eventually it’s going it’s going to kind of eat you alive, I guess, is the best way that I can describe that.
V.E. Griffith 18:00
Okay, so there is some sort of a, an existential or, or sort of bodily penalty if you keep it up.
Elizabeth Wood 18:07
Yeah. Bodily, spiritually. That’s kind of an ebb and flow, yin and yang thing if you if you’re using dark magic eventually, all the lights gonna leave you, you’ll lose your mind, you’ll use your life you lose your soul.
V.E. Griffith 18:27
Okay, what about a limiting factor in the magic. In most magical systems there is some kind of there is something that limits a mage to how much he can work in a day or in a time period. In video game terms, it would be you run out of mana. In you know, in some systems, it’s just that it’s physically taxing and eventually you were out physically and you got to sleep or you’ve got to rest, or in Dungeons and Dragons, you memorize your spells you have a maximum capacity and when you use the spell, it goes out of your memory and you have to do it again. What what is your limiting factor?
Elizabeth Wood 19:05
Really time and energy.
V.E. Griffith 19:09
Okay, so physical limitation.
Elizabeth Wood 19:10
Yeah, physical limitations.
Okay. Okay.
Miss Catherine M.H. 19:14
So you’ve talked about magic, you’ve talked about some other things. You’ve mentioned a few times spiritualism. But now I’m wondering, do you have a religious system in your book, or is it like a spiritual system? What the sides magic moves people?
Elizabeth Wood 19:39
On they’re not entirely certain really what happens with the soul they do know that they have one. They don’t believe, they’re definitely polytheistic. And there doesn’t seem to be any one. answer one way so there are some that believe in the afterlife. There are some that believe soul is a bunch of phooey because, you know, they they do see magic but they don’t believe in an internal soul per se. I hadn’t really thought about that too much. They do believe in the existence of a soul. But past that point, they’re not very religious, most of them they worship the light.
Miss Catherine M.H. 20:40
Cool. So that leads me into the segue that I was gonna say, because your main character is a light priestess. So what does that mean? What does it mean for your character? What does it mean to the culture that is around her?
Elizabeth Wood 21:00
All the big thing is they believe that the light The light is healing, they are, she’s serving a particular set of Gods, more for, not necessarily for the afterlife but for now in the present. Kind of the common and Greater Good deal. Hadn’t really fleshed that out very much.
Miss Catherine M.H. 21:31
So that’ll bring me to my other question. Of course. Necromancy. You’ve mentioned it now. What does this have to do with your math system? And where does it come into play in your culture and society? So you have some people who believe in a soul, some people who don’t you have many that will worship the light, you have people who think that that is the way to go. Negative magic can impact you and it can kind of consume you. So where does necromancy fall into this?
Elizabeth Wood 22:12
Necromancy I guess that kind of falls mostly into kind of the power dynamic, those who crave more power start doing, necromancy is kind of between what we would call shadow and blood magic. And it has a habit of kind of driving you insane. In order to create the undead, you have to rip away the soul. And then you animate them with blood magic.
Miss Catherine M.H. 23:02
You doing good. I’m getting a lot so you’re good.
Elizabeth Wood 23:07
Yeah, so the the outline for this story, I kind of came together in about four days. So it was more of a hint, and I haven’t quite fleshed it out some of the some of the magic systems I had focused on a little more to kind of get the story to work. But I hadn’t fleshed it out very much. As far as necromancy goes. It’s just a lot of fun.
Miss Catherine M.H. 23:41
Okay, so you’ve mentioned that you have a bit of a plot. Do you want to tell me a little bit about your story. If you were to word vomit at me, you don’t have to tell me your plot if you don’t want to. The big one that I like to ask people is what do you think is the climax of your book? If this was the movie, it’s like the holy shit, I’ve waited this entire moment for this. What do you think that is of your story?
Elizabeth Wood 24:09
Well, so the story basically begins with this priestess. She’s going about her day, just kind of chilling when one of the immortals walks in. He is diseased. They can’t see them necessarily figure out what’s going on. Eventually, they realize he’s actually dying. They have not come across this before so they don’t necessarily know how to heal him. So we have our light priestess who is extremely intrigued. She likes this guy. Doesn’t really know why but she does like there’s something about him that intrigues her she respects he you know He is an immortal, he’s fought in wars. He’s basically a warrior. So yeah, she kind of likes likes them, but not like that. At least not yet. She, I think she’s kind of baffled because she’s been able to heal anybody that comes in. And now she’s presented with an immortal, light isn’t going to work in healing him, nature magic isn’t going to work and healing him and she does not have experience in shadow magic. Knowledge in blood magic has been greatly destroyed, because of a war about 20 years ago, that very nearly destroyed the world. So she goes looking for answers. Now this particular immortal, doesn’t really want to live. He’s kind of done. He’s like, just please just let me die. I’m okay. Just let me die. I’m done. She kind of refuses to accept this answer. I think she really, really, really just wants to fix it. So she does some, some research, she goes to a library, she meets a character, he’s a librarian. And he spent, it’s a while before she actually figured this out. But he, for about 300 years has been practicing many, many schools of magic, he made it his life’s pursuit to gain as much knowledge as he possibly could. And kind of became like the theoretical physicist of the day, he was like the kind of like the Stephen Hawking and Einstein all rolled into one as far as magic goes, but he was also kind of crazy. So he was trying to delegitimized, I guess.
He went off the deep end practice started practicing necromancy and was eventually arrested for it. He was brought up on trial, because he did actually sacrifice quite a few people in the pursuit of learning this magic. And he was sentenced execution. So very shortly before his execution, he was approached, they said, Hey, so we’ve got this thing happening, we kind of need your help, we know that you have a lot of experience with the magic that’s causing it, we, we need you to to help stop this invasion. So we’ll give you a pardon, and a new identity if you help us stop the invasion, or you can just die. So in the interest of self preservation, he decides Hey, so yeah, I’m just I’m gonna take that pardon and become a librarian, I really do need a timeout, I’ve spent the last you know, 250, 300 years, causing a lot of chaos, I probably should just retire and have some peace and quiet for a little while. So he becomes basically a hero, he is assigned a new identity as a librarian, and is basically banned from doing magic. Well, this brings my my priestess into the picture, she goes to the library, to try to do some research on this, this magic that can help bring this immortal back to life, basically, or he’ll heal this immortal from his disease.
So there’s actually been a couple of different which ways that this can happen. And that’s another thing that I struggle with right now is like, which, which one should I go with, but she ends up finding out what his identity is, who he is. And she convinces him to train her in the magic. He reluctantly agrees to do so. And then, once, after he agrees, he’s basically said, This man doesn’t have enough time. So I’ll perform the ritual. I will train you, however, to do this magic in the future, because we are going to start having more and immortals coming in, you’re going to need to know what to do. So he starts training her in the magic. That’s the least the end of or closer to the end of this book. He does end up healing this warrior. She starts realizing or she starts realizing that she really does like this guy. So they end up going out on a date afterward. And that’s kind of where that particular story ends, but it does continue with farther. Eventually, this librarian necromancer starts taking over the world again, because he warns her, Hey, if you get me started, I’m not going to stop. You know, I love magic. This is what I need to do. I’m not a librarian. That’s it. Once you get me started, I’m not going to stop and he starts taking over the world. She eventually loses her mind, she becomes the shadow priestess.
Miss Catherine M.H. 30:26
That’s not in this book, though, right?
Elizabeth Wood 30:29
No.
Miss Catherine M.H. 30:31
Okay. All right. So then for this book, I have a few questions. How does she know that she needs to start researching blood magic based on this immortal coming in?
Elizabeth Wood 30:46
She doesn’t, she doesn’t actually find out about it until she meets the librarian. Because she’s really, she’s realized that she’s at. She’s at the point where the magic that she knows isn’t going to work. So she ends up going to the library trying to find the answers. But she’s encountered this librarian, who knows pretty much everything there is to know about magic. And he’s like dropping little hints on her as she’s there. So she’s actually kind of going back and forth between the immortal and librarian trying to convince the immortal to actually live. She’s like, hey, you know, you have gone through all of this. Now it’s time for you to actually live your life because it’s been stripped from you. And then she ends up going back to Dragen she’s like, I don’t, I don’t understand. But you keep telling me these things. What is it about you, she does a whole bunch of research into him basically, and then confronts him with it. So she ends up finding out through the librarian, that blood magic is the way that she needs to go. And the only way that she knows that she’s going to be able to do that is through him.
Miss Catherine M.H. 32:01
Gotcha. So another thing, is it part of her character, where it’s almost a pride issue, that she won’t let this guide die, like he’s like, please just let me die. I don’t want to deal with this. And she’s like, No, I’m gonna like, kind of go against all of your wishes. For almost selfish reasons.
Elizabeth Wood 32:22
Yeah. And it really wasn’t until I got to that point in the story that I realized that that’s what was going on with her. I’m like, she’s really not as you know, sweet and innocent as she seems. I think that she thinks that way. Yeah. That she’s, you know, altruistic and all that. But honestly, I think it’s more of a selfish thing on her part.
Miss Catherine M.H. 32:43
So you’re writing more of a fall of a main character, where they they start off being more on a good side, and eventually it’s almost like them becoming the bad one? Because you
Elizabeth Wood 32:57
Sort of I think it’s at least in the in the initial book. I don’t, I don’t really know. I mean, maybe. But she grows quite a bit, because she gets to a point where it’s kind of like a pendulum. She she goes from one to the center, she kind of swings back and forth after the first book. And then finally, she swings all the way the other side. So yes. But as far as the first book, no, because she is able to ultimately cure him. You know, the, the immortal is like, hey, yeah, I think it actually could be cool to go home and have a farm. And, you know, do all the things that I should have done. While you know, before the the invasion occurred. She ends up you know, ultimately carrying him she ends up getting the guy for a minute. And then things happen later.
Miss Catherine M.H. 34:00
Which guy? Because it almost sounds like the librarian is the dude that she gets with.
Elizabeth Wood 34:07
No, no, it’s the immortal she gets she ends up with him.
Miss Catherine M.H. 34:13
How does she find the library? Is this like a well known library? It’s like, Hey, anybody search magic. Learn all of this stuff.
Elizabeth Wood 34:20
Yes, it’s the main library in in town. Yes, that’s a big city I live in. So it’s the main hub for the city. And library. It includes quite a bit of magic. Yes. It has a lot of antique books, a lot of vintage books. It’s got a lot of knowledge on pretty much anything that you would need to know. That is permitted, I guess.
Miss Catherine M.H. 34:50
So why is she allowed to just read? Did you say forbidden or just permitted?
Elizabeth Wood 34:56
That’s permitted?
Miss Catherine M.H. 34:58
Okay, I was gonna about to be like, well then why is she just allowed to research? Okay. So what would you say is her big hurdles? Because I mean, she can walk to the library, she meets a dude who’s pretty much already going to be like, yeah, sure, I’ll help you. What do you think?
Elizabeth Wood 35:16
No.
Miss Catherine M.H. 35:17
So now, okay, so.
Elizabeth Wood 35:21
Her big hurdle really is getting access to the knowledge. She, she does make it to the library. But all that information has been destroyed since the war. So there is not at least public public knowledge there are, there are some people within the higher mage circle that they know blood magic, they, they are aware of what it can do, and there are some people that are knowledgeable in it. But as far as public knowledge, because it nearly destroyed the earth, they have just either destroyed it or made it very, very difficult to get. And it actually, a lot of the information that she’s looking for isn’t available in that library. And there isn’t anywhere that that the Dragen could or even would point her to, to find it. So her, her path of least resistance really is through him, she finds out kind of through her discussions with him, because again, she’s kind of going back and forth. With him dropping hints because he’s just a jerk. That he knows what’s going on. She kind of figures that out and ends up discovering that he is the one that she needs to be talking to.
Miss Catherine M.H. 36:46
Now does she train with him or against somebody’s wishes, or is that with some blessing?
Elizabeth Wood 36:53
His own, so she ends up modifying, so he’s he’s put on parole, again, he’s given a new identity, he is granted a pardon, but he’s still on parole. He’s not, he’s not permitted to actually perform any magic. So she approaches the courts to try to modify his parole against without him being present or his consent. And she basically forces his hand and forces him to teach her how to do magic, or black magic anyway.
So I know that this is something that keeps coming through to me. And I know that that you are at least minimally familiar with the with the three C’s conflict choice and consequence, do you have a sense of, for your, for your full story? What they are?
There’s a lot going on. No.
V.E. Griffith 37:56
Okay.
Elizabeth Wood 37:56
I’m still actually going through the outline. And, you know, this has actually been my biggest problem is that, you know, I have a sense of, I have a sense of the story. I really, you know, I’ve got a bunch of scenes that I’ve thought of for a really long time, I can kind of string them together, but I don’t have anything that’s fully fleshed out. As far as you know, the three C’s.
V.E. Griffith 38:19
For a lot of people, the hard one to come up with is the choice to understand what the character because if you don’t have a, if your character isn’t making choices, they’re just sort of bouncing through the story, and they’re not doing anything, they’re reacting, and they’re not acting and so you want your reader wants to be taken on a journey by a character who’s making choices. Can you see in your head, what the climax is? And what the major choice, the gut wrenching choice that she’s going to have to make? Who’s gonna leave? Who’s going to die? That kind of that kind of level of choice? Can you see something like that?
Elizabeth Wood 39:02
I’m well, you know, the big choice is obvious to me, really is the choice to, to use blood magic in general. And the choice to, to train. It’s kind of one of that moment where there’s actually a lot of different choices that she’s making at the same moment. If that makes any sense, or at least a lot of different decisions. You know. She’s, she’s realizing at that point, that she’s willing to do anything for this and that she has kind of screwed this guy over while doing it, but she doesn’t care. So, you know, does she does she do the right thing? Does she do the wrong thing? And is it actually wrong?
V.E. Griffith 40:03
Okay. All right. And approximately what point in your book does do you think of is that choice being made?
Elizabeth Wood 40:13
I think that that’s when she’s actually presenting him with his, his order to perform community service by training her.
V.E. Griffith 40:22
Okay, are we talking like three quarters of the way through the book? 80% 20%?
Elizabeth Wood 40:27
I think that’s probably it’s actually about three quarters or a little a little past half, somewhere between half and three quarters.
V.E. Griffith 40:37
That’s fine. All right, that works. At least to start with that works. And then what’s the what’s the consequence here? What what she You said she loses herself or becomes a becomes a Shadow Priest. Why is okay, why is that a negative?
Elizabeth Wood 40:57
Well, that’s a negative because she’s, she’s lost. Basically, the good person that she was she thought she was maybe she never was, but there is some goodness in her. There’s some innocence in her where she’s approaching this. But it’s all kind of thrown to the wayside for, you know, someone that she thinks she loves. Something that feels good for the moment, but may not actually be.
V.E. Griffith 41:30
Ikay, because that sounds like to me, an actually an interesting conflict setup for a trilogy. So you have you have your first book, you know, forcing the conflict, your second book, forcing the choice. And your third, your third book, you know, coming down to the consequence. So that sounds like a, since you’ve already said, this is a multiple book series. That sounds like one way to go. Okay. And do you have? Do you have a sense of what the progressive complications are? What what are the challenges that she’s going to face along the way that will ultimately force her into this choice?
Elizabeth Wood 42:08
As far as the first book or throughout the series?
V.E. Griffith 42:12
Let’s just do the first book. And usually there are two or three progressive complications and twists. And you can say, No, you don’t know yet.
Elizabeth Wood 42:23
Well, I do. I’m just trying to pinpoint because like I said, she’s going, she’s going back and forth. You know, she, she gets to a point where she is absolutely frustrated, because she feels like she’s getting a couple of inches, and then all of a sudden, she’s stopped. And there’s nowhere else to turn. You know, she was going back and forth to Dragen. Dragen’s like, hey, you know, you should look into this. She’s like, Okay, so tell me a little more. And he’s like, no, sorry, go away.
And she, she struggles with that. Plus, she’s also struggling with trying to get the immortal decide that he wants to survive, and she doesn’t understand why it has to be so freakin difficult. So finally, she kind of melts down and then the immortal is like, Okay, I see her trying really hard. Yeah, sure. Maybe I should. So she’s like, Okay, so that’s a little nibble. And then she continues to try to push forward until she’s like, this is all I’ve got left. She goes to the courts, and she forces Dragen’s hand. And because he basically he’s he keeps telling her no, you know, you you can’t do it this way. This is what you need to do. But you can’t do it that way. She’s like, Okay, well, and like I was, like I said, you know, I was using one of your quotes were don’t accept no, from somebody who doesn’t have the authority to give you a lash or the authority to give you yes. Sorry, I said it a little bit there. But basically, she’s like, you don’t have the authority to give me I guess the courts do. The courts can give me a yes, and force you to do what I want you to do. So.
V.E. Griffith 44:12
Do you have more Catherine?
Miss Catherine M.H. 44:14
I do have a few things.
V.E. Griffith 44:18
Now that I’ve totally run us off the rails.
Miss Catherine M.H. 44:21
No, you haven’t. So you’re good.
Elizabeth Wood 44:25
And I’m sorry. I do have severe anxiety. So I like start to ramble and then ADD out.
Miss Catherine M.H. 44:33
All writers will word vomit. The the craft what I do is I pull the word vomit. I write you up notes that will explain exactly what you were trying to tell me. Yes.
Elizabeth Wood 44:46
Cool.
V.E. Griffith 44:47
Well, we’ll get you a copy the notes as soon as Miss Catherine has them done.
Elizabeth Wood 44:51
Thank you.
Miss Catherine M.H. 44:51
I do see there’s a really big like movement, especially in Disney to write the villains stories. And I feel from what you’re telling me is that you are writing a villain story. You’re writing kind of she becomes where it almost feels that she herself. I mean, there’s good in people, there’s even good and villains, they believe that they are doing the right thing. But it also sounds like the amount of power that she wasn’t allowed to have being sheltered, is too appealing for her to turn away. And now that she knows where she can get little bits from, she’s gonna go for it. And I feel that that’s that how your, your story is playing out a bit. And you can see it almost in the colors, where everything seems to be. Not dull, but very monotone are things with the amount. Yeah, yeah, like those earthy monotone colors, whereas the majors have those bright colors, she has that like almost want to move, maybe in that direction of not having that same monotone life that she’s been sheltered into to move on to that. So you’re showing that with your culture and your colors, the type of magic that you have is pretty cool. You’ve got all of this broad magic that’s like look at all these really cool things. But the fact that people are maxing out on it automatically shows that somebody’s got to start dipping and diving down. And so she’s that person going to, and she’s pushing everybody else to do exactly what she wants, even though she thinks that that’s the idea that you should be doing. She’s like, this is right, I’m healing this person. I’m learning this magic, because there will be other people. But just because you think it’s right doesn’t mean that that’s the right thing to be doing. So I feel like you’ve got a cool villianish story going on. Right?
V.E. Griffith 47:06
The thing that I had actually written down several minutes ago was that this really is a fallen angel origin story.
Miss Catherine M.H. 47:14
Sort of an false narrative, where we think that she’s doing the right thing too.
Elizabeth Wood 47:22
And I’m sure that she feels the thing is is like near the end, she really isn’t the one you know. Dragen, and which is actually funny, I was taking some some advice from Mr. V.E. Griffith, Griffith over here. He’s like, Well, you know, maybe she’s talking to. Well, I had gotten I had gotten stuck. I’d gotten stuck. I was introducing another character way, way, way too early. And I’m like, This doesn’t feel right. I’m struggling. So what do I do? He’s like, Well, maybe you should have her talk to somebody, maybe a pet or a cat. And unlike Hey, Dragen’s in this world, at the same time, maybe they should meet, I kind of threw him together. He kind of ended up not necessarily taking over the story. But he’s definitely involved in about two thirds of it. So he has already been the one. He he spent quite a bit of time researching alternative magic, which is how he ended up where he was. So he is that one that finds out how to push it further. He kind of just started to dive even deeper. So she’s trying to actually get up to that level. And then she falls. Because he basically ends up leaving her in the dust.
Miss Catherine M.H. 48:55
Yeah, and it’s, it’s a cool, it’s a cool idea to do more of a fall of a character than to do like, Haha, you are the absolute hero. I like when you get to see the darker side of characters.
Elizabeth Wood 49:09
I love them. And I don’t know why I’ve always kind of been that way. But, you know, I don’t, I don’t always feel and I’ve always I’ve always been sort of I don’t, I don’t feel like everything’s black and white. There’s definitely, you know, gray. And as far as you know, the villain, they think that they’re doing good too. You know, it’s just have different viewpoints. So
V.E. Griffith 49:32
They’re the hero their own story.
Elizabeth Wood 49:34
So that was my thought anyway.
Miss Catherine M.H. 49:38
Well, I’ll definitely write up the notes along with other questions. So usually, when I write up notes for people, I’ll add in questions that I had where I’m just prying just a little bit more doesn’t mean you have to answer me. It’s just to get you thinking. And then I have several different templates that I use with people and I’ll send you a bunch of those too, so you can flesh out more have the stuff and then it’s all right there. So they’ll ask you questions and you can flesh out things more as the answers come to you. They don’t have to be all filled out. That’s what I tell people. It’s like you don’t have to know. I’m a pantser. I love the pants. Outlining is the devil to me.
I just like to world build, and I know my character. And then from there, that’s all I need to write my story. So I’ll send you some stuff. And hopefully that’ll help solidify some things for you too.
Elizabeth Wood 50:35
Cool. Yeah, my thing is, I know my characters really well. I know what they would do in any particular instance. But the big thing surrounding them like the world, I’ve always had such a hard time with that. So any help that you can give me would be wonderful.
Miss Catherine M.H. 50:52
I’ve got like 10 templates I can send you. I’ve got magic stuff. I have spells I have, you know, what does your city look like? I even have clothing so I got you.
Elizabeth Wood 51:07
Cool. Cool.
V.E. Griffith 51:09
All righty. Then, we’ll go ahead and end it here and catch up with you possibly next time. Thanks very much.
Miss Catherine M.H. 51:18
Thanks. Stay magical!
